`index.ts` caches primary views and hides them with a class so scrollTop survives navigation. Nothing else was told: `disconnectedCallback` never fires for one, so everything written to clean up there never cleans up. The worst case was not a leak — pressing `s` on Settings skipped two albums out of the Autotag queue, and `a` on that same live handler rewrites tags on disk. - `utils/view-lifecycle.ts` is the missing half: `viewActivated` / `viewDeactivated`, with `listenWhileActive`, `intervalWhileActive` and `whileActive` torn down on the way out, and an off-screen view that does not render. `registerViewAware` gives a shared reactive controller the same treatment, because a controller cannot know whether its host is a cached view — `ContextMenuController` bound three document listeners in `hostConnected`, which for a cached host is "forever". - `services/shortcut-scope.ts` publishes the ambient scope. Resolving scope from focus alone was not enough: this app is driven with the mouse, focus sits on `<body>`, and a focus-only rule would have made the panel keys work only after a click landed inside the panel. - Global bindings yield to a focused control that owns the key — button, select, slider, checkbox, menu, grid row, or anything inside an open dialog — so the unmodified single-key bindings stop stealing Space and the arrows. - `utils/roving-grid.ts` gives a card grid one tab stop moved with the arrows, since a card per tab stop makes a library-length tab sequence.
YellowJacket
Music how it was meant to bee.
YellowJacket is a fast, cross-platform desktop music player for your local collection. It plays your files, keeps your library tidy, and helps you discover and organize your music — all in a clean, responsive interface. No accounts, no streaming, no telemetry: just your music on your machine.
Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Features
Play your music
- Plays MP3, FLAC, OGG Vorbis, and WAV
- Play, pause, seek, and volume control with a mute toggle
- Gapless, glitch-free seeking backed by a read-ahead buffer
- A queue you can add to, reorder, and shuffle, with play-next support
- Shuffle and repeat (off / all / one)
- Picks up right where you left off — remembers your track, position, and volume between sessions
- Media-key and MPRIS support on Linux, so your desktop's playback controls just work
Keep your library organized
- Point it at your music folders and it scans them automatically
- Reads tags and embedded cover art, and de-duplicates artwork so it isn't stored twice
- Incremental sync — only new or changed files get reprocessed, and deleted files are cleaned up
- Browse by album, artist, or genre, or search across everything
- Mark favorites and see what you've been listening to with play history
- Edit track tags directly when something's off
Playlists
- Create playlists, drag tracks in, and reorder them
- Smart playlists that build themselves from rules (by genre, rating, play count, and more)
- Pin a default playlist and spot duplicate tracks at a glance
Discover and clean up (powered by MusicBrainz)
- Explore — browse artists, releases, and genres from the MusicBrainz catalog, not just what's already in your library
- Auto-tag — match your files against MusicBrainz to fill in correct artist, album, and track metadata, with a review step before anything is written
- Lyrics search — find a track by a line you remember
Install
Download the latest build for your platform from the releases page.
| Platform | Download |
|---|---|
| Linux | yellowjacket-linux-amd64 |
| macOS | yellowjacket-darwin-universal.app.zip (Apple Silicon + Intel) |
| Windows | yellowjacket-windows-amd64.exe |
Prefer to build it yourself? See Building from source.
Getting started
- Launch YellowJacket.
- Open Settings and add the folder(s) where your music lives.
- Let the initial scan finish — you'll see progress as it works.
- Browse by album, artist, or genre, queue something up, and press play.
Your library and settings are stored locally:
| Linux / macOS | Windows | |
|---|---|---|
| Config | ~/.config/yellowjacket/ |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\yellowjacket\config |
| Library data | ~/.local/share/yellowjacket/ |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\yellowjacket\data |
Building from source
YellowJacket is built with Go and a Lit/TypeScript frontend, bridged by the Wails framework.
Prerequisites
| Tool | Version |
|---|---|
| Go | 1.25+ |
| Node.js | 22+ |
| pnpm | 10+ |
| Wails CLI | v2 (go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest) |
On Linux, install the system libraries Wails needs:
sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev libgtk-3-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev
macOS and Windows need no extra system packages. Run wails doctor to check your
environment.
Build
make setup # install tooling and git hooks
make dev # run with hot-reload
make build-prod # produce a release binary
More detail for contributors lives in
docs/dev/overview.md and CLAUDE.md.